In politics, what looks like an easy and obvious solution is often not even on the table. Politicians don’t think like ordinary people.
Let me give you one example. The 1990 elections in Indiana produced a divided legislature. The Republicans controlled the State Senate and the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives. The major task for the legislature in 1991 was its ten-year obligation to redraw legislative districts. Though I was a 20-year legislative veteran, I was naïve enough to think that now Indiana would for the first time in anyone’s memory get a truly bi-partisan legislative map. Legislators would win or lose on the basis of their own reputations or popularity not because someone in a smoke filled room drew them a favorable map.
I remind the reader that there is nothing so dear to a legislator than the boundaries of his district. It has been said that he or she would shove his own mother down the stairs in a wheel chair just to add a few favorable precincts. (Political neophytes may not know that elections are won in the map rooms not in the voting booths.)
Re-districting is highly political but there are rules. In the Sixties, the Supreme Court decreed that population could not deviate by more than one percent, natural boundaries such as rivers or highways should be observed, and such things as community of interest and racial makeup should not be diluted.
Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans, House Democrats and House Republicans each hired a team of political and computer experts. All through the session, legislators were seen coming and going out of the map rooms. No mothers were shoved down the stairs but one wonders how many votes were shifted or other deals were struck in this process.
History buffs will recall that it took two special sessions before the redistricting bill finally passed. Others will remember that there was no compromise, no bi-partisan solution. The minority Senate Democrats and the minority House Republicans each had the maps “stuffed down their throats.”
Politics is power and those in power hold on to that power even if fellow party members are hurt in the process. Hurt is too mild a word for those who had their political careers ended by those maps.
I recalled this basic lesson of politics when George the Younger was selected president. Once again, I naively thought that, since the election was so close, there would be a genuine effort at bi-partisanship. But no, almost from day one, the Bushites have acted as if they received a huge mandate. They talked up recession to pass their huge tax giveaway. They touted an energy crisis to get oil drilling in the Arctic. They gave us super conservative John Ashcroft as attorney general to enforce abortion and civil rights laws. The swagger of the right wingers was so arrogant that one moderate, Sen. Jim Jeffords, had enough and walked out.
And so it goes. Once the oath of office is taken, power shifts. The lesson I forgot is that there will be no reaching out as promised. George would not be shmoozing with Democrats like he supposedly did down in Texas. This would not be a period where the extremists would be shunted aside and moderation would rule. I’ll say it again—power always prevails.
A month or so after last year’s election, President Clinton was asked by an interviewer if he was surprised by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bush vs. Gore. Clinton thought a minute and then replied, “No, I was not surprised. They did it because they could.”
Those who hold power use it.
